We’d booked our penguin tour the next day, which meant a day trip out with other people. Those people turned out to be Jon and Sophie and to be honest, I tried to rack my brains about the notes I’d written and I don’t remember much, I remember them being nice and I remember being squashed in a car with them. We went to the penguin sanctuary, first in the penguin museum then to see them in the flesh. What I liked most was how many penguins there were, there were literally 1000s of them and we could walk right up them I could reach out and touch one (but we weren’t allowed 😦 )
we watched them for ages they were so entertaining. Then we made our way back to the car after a few hours. Jon and Sophie followed us back shortly after. What made this trip even better was the knowledge that our driver had, he knew all about animals and birds and all sorts. On the way back to Puerto Madryn we stopped and looked at some elephant seals unfortunately the big ones were at sea but we still got up close and personal with some very lazy seals and it was still all very fun.
We got back had a beer with Jon and Sophie then went to bed as we had yet another coach journey in the morning this time for a stop in Bariloche.
Bariloche was our last stop in Argentina, at least for about a weeks time when we went back in Argentina. Anyway we wasn’t there long we had intentions to do a bit of a hike in Bariloche but we didn’t. Bariloche is very German, that’s the best way to describe it it’s almost like an alpine Bavarian village.
Our hostel was like a war zone, first we spoke to a establishment hating Asian man, who in different circumstances would probably not be allowed to walk the streets, to give you a back story Bariloche harboured a number of Nazi’s who fled Germany during the end of the World War 2 and this guy may well have been fleeing some sort of war as well. His views were questionable at best and he was from North London. Nuff said.
As if we hadn’t had enough questionable views the lady who worked at our hostel Mira had Ill feelings towards isrealis. When I say Ill feelings it was prompted by Jack and I, who asked who the worst people to host are, she ranted for 10-15 minutes about how rude a lot of isrealis are when they come to the hostel she would say it was easier to put them in a room by themselves than make them share with other non isrealis, very strong views for someone who lives in Bariloche.
That night we went out for a drink in a local establishment we got very drunk despite having another coach journey the next day . During the night we got speaking to Miguel the Argentinian.
What do two englishmen and an argie talk about when we get drunk….the Falklands. Obviously we weren’t born but we know enough about it to hold a conversation but what we didn’t know is how to have that conversation in Spanish and what Miguel didn’t know was to have that conversation in English. What ensued was a very broken English/Spanish conversation about a war we weren’t alive for. It all ended amicably and it turned out to be a great night. We woke up the next day and then made our way to Chile.
Our first stop in Chile was the Adventure capital Pucon, it was like Cuffley Camp on steroids, think of an extreme sport and they offer it here. Jack’s reason for stopping here was to climb a Volcano (Villarrica Volcano) I was less inclined to do this but after listening in to the salesperson I was sold, Jack and I the next morning were going to climb a Volcano.
We got an early night as we had an early start. Climbing this Volcano was not straight forward, if the weather turns you can’t do it, if you get to base camp and the weather turns you have to turn back of the Volcano goes off…..well I’ll explain that in a bit. Jack and I set off to the meeting point where there were two guides, a lady of 61 (Patricia) and a couple of other younger dudes. I had not signed up for a Hike, I had not come dressed for a hike but we were going on a hike! We even had back packs and ice shoes, I’ve never felt more cool. The drive from the town was about twenty minutes and on the minibus there was a tangible air of excitement. We arrived at our destination and got kitted up, Ross “bare grills” Tunnicliffe was ready for action. Our two guides talked us through the ascent it sounded ok and we had Patricia with us if anyone was going to give up surely it would be Patricia.
The first task was to get on the chair lift, no bar across your lap and no safety harness to stop you dropping 20 metres on to a Rocky mountainside but…this is the adventure capital of Chile so who needed that. After the chair lift they reckoned it was a few hours hike from here…..I should have learned, I was already knocking off the minutes thinking We’d do it in an hour or so. After an hour we stopped the guides told us that we were halfway. This was not so bad, but this is where we had to change to the ice boots. It was going to get a lot steeper and a lot more difficult from here, I scoffed, Patricia hadn’t even broken a sweat. We had our midway break then began, slowly my buoyant mood started to dissolve each step burned my legs, one of the guides had taken the burden of Patricia’s back pack and the only talk was to warn one another of the cascading rocks which would occasionally fall from above.
The guides would occasionally ask Patricia if she wanted a break, she stubbornly refused, my legs were screaming (it was at this point that I realised this must be what Edmund Hillary felt like when he scaled Everest) we had a number of scheduled breaks and then we were at the top, I wanted to cry but we made it. According to the guides we had a fantastic day for it there was barely a cloud in the sky and the Volcano was bubbling away despite being high up a snow capped mountain the heat when looking over the top was nigh on unbearable. For a guy who initially didn’t want to do this excursion I had to eat my hat, one of the best experiences of the whole trip despite all the hard work it took of getting to the top.
Now the fun bit, the sledge to the bottom ….we’d each been given a bumsledge and the instruction to follow the person in front, despite being no end of fun this was arguably more dangerous than the hike, there was no way of controlling the sledge and the only advice you were given was of you lose control whack your ice pick in the snow and try to hold on. This did not work but that kind of made it more fun and no one died on the way to the bottom hooray. We went down and had booked ourselves in for a sauna later that night, we deserved it.
Walking around the town you would occasionally hear a siren so at the hostel we asked what it represented and it was a three way warning alarm to warn of dangers in the town here is what we were told “one siren, this means a small emergency, maybe a small fire, two sirens and this more serious and you need to be aware of where you are, three sirens and you need to evacuate to high ground, but the whole of pucon is evacuating and smoke and lava will move faster than your traffic so if three sirens go off, you sit round the table with your family open your best bottle of red and wait” I stayed awake that whole night listening for the three sirens.
It was a short trip in Pucon but a diversion I’m hugely glad we took, after Pucon we made our to Santiago for a couple of nights. I thought it was a great city, we took in some rap battles, a massive football match which lead to a city wide party, karaoke and in our hostel there was a guy who didn’t stop playing Grand Theft Auto so you could say it was a mixed bag but good none the less. I was going to go in to a bit more detail of the city wide tour we took but I’m further behind than I need to be so I won’t. One of the nights out found us in a bar talking to two Yanks and a Brit, standard conversation the two yanks hated trump and the Brit was a remainer. The Brit had a very bad habit of mentioning his girlfriend more than was neccessary and coupled with his extremely camp approach lead Jack and I to come to the conclusion that he was Gay, not that this was in any way a problem just an observation that he may well have been over compensating.
After Santiago we made a short trip to Valparaiso a hilly coastal town in Chile. Despite being incredibly difficult to walk around the town itself was very quaint. Again I’m going to avoid detail here but aside from some mindfulness on the beach, my highlight was when a lady (let’s say of Patricia’s age) took a shining to Jack in a bar they were most forthcoming and her and her friend sat with us. We had a conversation in Spanish, I literally had no idea was going on I could tell they were being vulgar because occasionally a loud cigarette fuelled laugh would fill the air….that wasn’t the highlight….I know I know you’re thinking how can that not be the highlight, well the highlight cane when a homeless man started talking to Jack and I, one of the women kindly told the man that we didn’t speak good Spanish, the man then took offence and proceeded to SPIT at the woman and with that the waiter came out the bar and kicked the man up the bum and half way up the street, the man got up and started walking towards the waiter and a fight broke out which the waiter clearly won…..then minutes later the homeless man came running back down the street shouting what I can only imagine were obscenities…..so that was the highlight.
Ohh also, sleeping or dead?
Travel Ramblings 